We spent the entire morning on our ship sailing through the three gorges of the Yangtze River. The first was Qutang Gorge, which took only about 30 minutes. It is a 5 mile long gorge–the shortest and narrowest.
The First Gorge
The mountains along the gorge rise straight out of the River and tower over us on each side. There was ancient writing on the walls at one point.
Just on the other side of the gorge there are citrus groves on the north side of the river.
Remember, though, we are about 150 feet higher in the gorge than if the river were at normal level. This is because of the Three Gorges Dam, and the reservoir created behind it.
The Goddess Peak
After lunch, we entered the second gorge. This gorge was even deeper, and the views were awesome. This is called the Wu Gorge which in English means the Witches Gorge.
The Witches Gorge
At the end of this gorge is the Goddess Peak which is on the north bank of the river.
Just past the goddess peak, there is a tributary flowing from the south bank. We entered the tributary and anchored for a shore excursion.
A small vessel called a Sampan carried us through the beautiful lesser gorge. The tributary is called the Goddess Stream, and the water is a green color.
This might be a lesser gorge but it was absolutely spectacular. We called it the gorgeous gorge.
A Lesser Tributary on the Yangtze River
Our guide is from here. These are farmers, and they are a minority group of people in China. This is a tranquil setting.
Our Local Guide
When the gorge got too narrow for the boat to proceed, we disembarked and took a foot bridge even farther into the gorge.
Chuck walking on the footbridge, the only way to go deeper into the narrower Gorge.
As far as we could go into the Gorge.
It was another wonderful day, but certainly not over.
Leaving the Witches Gorge
Around 10 pm we entered the first of five locks which we must use to take us down to the level of the river on the other side of the Three Gorges Dam.
Entering the first lock
These locks operate by gravity and water pressure. As we enter a lock, along with several other ships, the gates close and it is our weight that pushes the water down and into the next lock.
First, we snuggled up next to a container ship.
As the water pushes out of our lock, the ships in our lock including our own drop lower and lower until the water stabilizes between the two locks.
Another cruise ship snuggled in behind us.
All it takes is for the gates to open, and then we move forward to the next lock where the process repeats itself. The entire process takes 3 hours, and I don’t plan to stay up and watch all five locks.
Moving into Lock #2. As we moved through each lock the container ship and other cruise ship moved along with us, too.
We went through the locks with another cruise ship our size and a container ship. In the first lock we banged against the container ship, and their crew had a big argument with our crew.
Oops. First a crash and then people yelling at each other. See the broken railing on the container ship. I think we got too close.
We went to bed but you can hear the lock operations going on outside– squealing and scraping sounds. Not sure we’ll sleep much until this is over.
Tomorrow we tour the Three Gorges Dam, one of the largest dams in the world.
Extremely interesting! Great descriptions! Wish I was there! You are brace to be on this voyage! Did you travel with a group or just the two of you? I so miss foreign travel but fear overrides my desire to go! Please keep giving us these posts!
We went to China with the Georgia Tech alumni travel group. We have always felt safe with them, but I have to admit that I wouldn’t want to go to Europe this year with any group. Thanks for reading, Sylvia.
Those mountains are beautiful! I wonder if the slope into the water would have been as drastic without the flooding from the damn? And those locks look VERY narrow!
I wondered the same thing about the cliffs. Yes, it was a tight squeeze with all three ships in a single lock.